Community Foundations of Canada Website Beginner’s Guide A brief guide to updating, building or maintaining your first Community Foundations of Canada website Beginner’s Guide to Creating or Maintaining Your Community Foundation Website Your community foundation website: you know it is a crucial tool in reaching out, building awareness and sharing the news of the organization. It is often a first point of contact to your foundation for potential donors and other stakeholders. And yet, it’s common for foundations and other organizations to experience the following: • Our website doesn’t reflect who we are as a foundation or what we do. • It doesn’t tell a story. • It’s hard for our visitors to find what they need. • It just feels dated. • I don’t know where to start. • I don’t have much to invest in creating or refreshing my website. Creating, maintaining and refreshing your website or digital properties often gets sidelined by other priorities, ie, something we know we should get to but never seem to have time to do. This resource is a very brief guide to updating or building your first community foundation website — what are some key components you might consider? What steps should we keep in mind? What resources will we require? How do you ensure it’s sustainable? Community Foundation of Canada Website Beginner’s Guide FIRST STEPS: 1. Determine how your foundation might use a website Visit other foundation websites to see how they convey messages,display information and engage their users. Links to the network of Canadian community foundation sites can be found at www.communityfoundations.ca Develop basic goals for your website • What do you want to achieve by having a website? • What basic objectives do you want to fulfill? • Who are the primary visitors and audiences you want to reach? • What business goals to you want to achieve? • If you have a website, where are your users currently going to find the information they want? • What are some of the barriers users may face in accessing information? • What messages are you eager to communicate? • Will you only use your website to post information for others to view? • Will your grantees need to interact with it by signing up for events or sharing information with you? • Will your site need to integrate a grants management system, donation function or board portal? • How will your site link to your social media accounts if you are using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram? Define a budget and scope for the project • Website costs vary widely. It’s important to define your scope and resources from the beginning. • You can keep costs low by using free software and more cost effective hosting solutions, templates and tools as well as free design elements. Alternatively, you can choose to work with an agency that helps you develop the project from A to Z and supports the project management, the design and development and maintenance. Decide how your website will work once it’s in place • Develop a simple content strategy for your website and social media channels. A website is not a static destination. It grows and evolves over time. Creating even a basic content roadmap and web publishing schedule can help you better plan your work and deliverables. You will find some template copy at the end of this document if you’re just getting started. • Develop a simple maintenance plan: Who will do basic maintenance on your website? Even simple sites will need periodic updating to update, archive or delete content that may no longer be accurate. As you plan your website project, decide who will be responsible for this function and how frequently you wish to audit and review the content. There is no hard and fast rule: some organizations do this on a quarterly basis others annually or even biannually. Community Foundation of Canada Website Beginner’s Guide • Create a simple governance strategy: Who is responsible for writing and publishing content? Who needs to see it and approve it before publication? Who decides when it can be archived or removed? It’s worth taking some time to establish basic website governance principles. If an external consultant is doing the work, designate a point person within your organization. 2. Get your website project going Pick a domain name that reflects your foundation name succinctly and register it with a domain registrar. Different registrars will have slightly different fees, services and types of customer support. Check out: https://cira.ca/ca-domains/register-your-ca as a good place to start. Build your website using one of the following options: Build the site in-house. Many web building and web hosting or blog companies offer simple, customizable templates that make it easy to build a website and adapt it to their needs. Companies like Wordpress, Blogger, SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly and SnapPages allow users to create sites by using very basic HTML or even no coding experience at all. • Work with an agency, freelancer developer to build your site on spec. If you have some resources, retaining the services of an expert can help. Increasingly, this is not off limits even on a shoestring budget as digital technology becomes ever-more present. Affordable options are available. Connect with CFC if you are looking for recommendations for freelance developers or referrals to agencies or ask a foundation whose website you admire for recommendations. • Design and content are key parts of any web project. Decide how and who will develop the architecture or organization of content (and sections) for your site and write or source the visual content for it. Consider establishing even brief guidelines for style and brand to stay consistent as your site evolves. We have provided some draft content below that you are welcome to copy and paste or use as inspiration. Be in touch if you have any questions! 3. Preview and test your website • Be sure to allow for time to test for quality assurance and troubleshooting as part of your overall project. • Ask your colleagues to dedicate time for review and feedback on content, website navigation and reach out to CFC if you need support with testing. We are happy to help. 4. Share your work with your communities • Once you’ve designed and set up your website, be sure to let your grantees, potential grantees, donors and others in your community know that it’s live. Begin to include the web address in your email signature, update your online profiles and your letterhead and be sure to link to Community Foundations of Canada with our logo somewhere on your site! You can find our logo and brand guidelines here: http://communityfoundations.ca/resources/cfc-logos-and-guidelines/ Community Foundation of Canada Website Beginner’s Guide ADDITIONAL REFERENCE MATERIALS What makes a good community foundation website? Core components: Most community foundation websites have seven main landing pages — Welcome, About Us, Grants, Donors, Professional Advisors, News/Blogs and Contact. Below is an overview of each of the pages and potential content to include in your website. A. Homepage Landing Page: Welcome Who Are You? • Brief explanation of your Community Foundation • Message from the Chair of the Board/Executive Director • Links to other pages that will be on your site ie. • About Us • About our Work • Apply For A Grant • How To Donate • Professional Advisors B. Main Page: About Us Subpage: The Foundation • History • Mission and Vision • Board of Directors • Partners or Sponsors • Contact Us • Blogs or News Section Community Foundation of Canada Website Beginner’s Guide 1. About your community foundation The [Name] Community Foundation is part of a worldwide movement of foundations whose objective is to help build stronger and more vibrant communities. In Canada we are a part of Community Foundations of Canada, a network organization to more than 191 community foundations from coast to coast to coast. The (Name) Community Foundation reaches out to (geographic area). We play three key roles • We are leaders in identifying local community needs and advocating for meaningful social change. Each community has unique experiences and challenges. Our strength is in bringing people together to address these needs. • We work with donors who wish to make meaningful and lasting contributions to the well-being of their community • We support charitable organizations that provide programs and services for the community Community foundations bring local knowledge, experience and a network of community relationships to our grant making. We are a charitable public foundation created by and for the people of [Community] and have a deep knowledge of local needs and opportunities. We act as champions for issues that matter and direct grants to everything from shelter, education, and care for those in need, to the arts, environment and recreation. We make charitable giving easy, flexible and effective. We work with you and your advisors to maximize the value of charitable gifts. Our goal is to help you meet important needs in the community, fulfill your charitable goals, and maximize your tax advantages. Gifts can support any cause you can imagine. We believe in the power of individuals and organizations working together to effect positive change in our community. Gifts are pooled and invested and form permanent community assets. Earnings from these assets are granted back into the community each year to registered charities. Registered charitable # 0000 0000 RR0001. 2. History of your community foundation How, why, and when your Community Foundation began (Insert your story here). This is your place to share why your foundation is important. Example: “More than ten years ago, a group of community-minded leaders imagined what a community foundation could do for Wood Buffalo.